Mamata flags use of AI in SIR, tells CEC: ‘Current approach arbitrary, exclusionary’

Referring to the ongoing hearings in the second phase of the SIR in the state, the chief minister said the process was “mechanical and driven by technicalities rather than a reasoned application of mind”. (Express photo by Partha Paul)

Flagging the “mechanical” SIR process “using Artificial Intelligence (AI)”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday, in a fresh letter to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, accused the poll panel of disowning its own previous mechanisms, and added that its current approach “is arbitrary, illogical and contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution”.

In her third letter to the CEC, since the Election Commission began the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound West Bengal, the chief minister said the aim of the ongoing exercise seemed to be “neither correction nor inclusion… but solely of deletion and of exclusion” of voters.

“Such administrative lapses are being unfairly forced upon citizens, causing severe harassment of common citizens and also resulting in the denial of their constitutional rights. This defeats the very objective of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which is intended to strengthen and purify the electoral rolls, not to exclude genuine and eligible voters,” she wrote.

She also said that the absence of proper acknowledgment or receipt being issued for the documents submitted is creating a problem for electors. “The non-issuance of documentary acknowledgment deprives electors of proof of submission and places them at the mercy of internal record-keeping deficiencies,” she wrote. She said that using AI tools for the digitisation of the manual voter lists of 2002 has led to serious errors in electors’ details, leading to many genuine voters being categorised as “logical discrepancies.”

She also accused the Election Commission of disregarding its own statutory processes that were followed consistently over two decades and wrote: “Why should the process revert to 2002? Does this imply that all revisions carried out over the intervening years were illegal?”

The TMC chief also condemned “harassment” of eminent citizens, noting that Nobel Laureate Prof Amartya Sen, poet Joy Goswami, actor and MP Deepak Adhikari, international cricketer Mohammed Shami, and the Maharaj of Bharat Sevashram Sangha were “subjected to this unplanned, insensitive and inhuman process.” “Does this not amount to sheer audacity on the part of the EC?” she asked.

The chief minister further criticised the treatment of women voters, saying, “Women electors who have shifted to their matrimonial homes and changed their surnames after marriage are being questioned and summoned for hearings to prove their identity.

“This not only reflects a complete lack of social sensitivity but also constitutes a grave insult to women and genuine voters. Is this how a constitutional authority treats half of the electorate?” The chief minister urged the EC to immediately address the issues to “end the harassment and agony of the citizens and the official machinery” and safeguard democratic rights.